


In The Hours Before

by TottWriter



Category: Digimon Adventure
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Odaiba Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: For Odaiba Day 2018





	In The Hours Before

**Author's Note:**

> Getting in late with my contribution this year, but oh well. 
> 
> This piece was heavily inspired by The Rigs - We All Fall Down, which I thoroughly recommend giving a listen
> 
> Happy Odaiba Day everyone!

He’s lying awake, unable to sleep for once. The clock is ticking beside his bed and yet somehow, no matter how many seconds he counts, time seems to be stuck. As often as he keeps checking the numbers they just don’t seem to be moving fast enough.

Perhaps his mind is too busy. It’s another year has rolled by, and though the danger has long since passed once more there’s a nagging in his mind which screams: _but what about when it comes back. Will you be ready fast enough this time?_

The fear bites at his chest, clawing into his ribs and stealing his air, and as he lies there paralysed, all he can think of is the people he’s let down. The mistakes he’s made. Stupid decisions, rash decisions, slow decisions; all weighted with the expectations of others. They’re watching him. They’re looking up to him— _still_ , after all this time. What if he can’t find a way to meet their expectations?

What if next time, he steers them wrong. Can he really be counted upon to lead the way each time, when his doubts reach up and smother him at night?

The ache and tension in his chest lifts as a hand flops across him, claws tapping lightly against his ribcage. By the faint light of the clock, and the muffled glow of Tokyo filtering through his blinds he sees Agumon shuffle in his sleep. There’s no fear on his partner’s face as he settles down again, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath.

Taichi smiles wryly. Agumon has always slept well, no matter the danger. And always woken up strong enough to fight, too.

He closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

She’s dreaming. There’s a quality to the world around her which gives it away—impossible to place, but not _real_. Later, when she wakes, she’ll recognise the deja vu which cocoons her; the mismatch of people in the wrong places and times.

Rushing, hurrying…falling short.

It’s not so strange a thing to dream about on this night, after all these years. A succession of miracles has kept them living and saved the world. Sometimes she wonders if her own actions could ever have been enough to shape things themselves. In the face of so much danger, so much lost hope, perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that she held as strong as she did.

But here in this moment, she’s lost in a sea of failure, foes crowding round and the certainty of defeat rising up on every side. She’s lost, lost and afraid and the family she’s formed around her is fractured and splintering. Taichi and Yamato bicker and fight and are struck down, too focused on arguing to see the blow before it reaches them. She screams a warning too late.

The battle rages, digimon and humans alike fighting and falling in every direction. The weight of her grief and fear brings her to her knees even as the scene fades—somehow distant and immediate simultaneously. Lights flicker out across the sky, and a reflected earth goes dark, plunging her into cold, cold nothingness.

A warm presence lingers by her side, though, constant as ever. Safe and secure against the most impossible odds.

“I’m here, Sora,” Piyomon says. “We can save them,”

The weight lifts.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a faint hum from the kitchen, fridge working through its chill cycle, but beyond that the apartment is silent. He’s not asleep—but it’s not really fair to say he’s awake either, not when the hour is this late, and he hasn’t moved or opened his eyes in so long. His thoughts are slow and sluggish and he can’t quite place the thing that’s wrong.

It’s there, though. A problem lurking in the back of his mind. Something he’s forgetting or overlooking, and can’t decide if he would be better knowing or not.

The unease is just enough to keep him awake, and no more left over, so it takes an unknown amount of time for him to realise that in part the issue is the silence. His apartment is just too quiet. Too empty, on a night like this. Something is missing. No, some _one_.

His eyes snap open with the realisation and for a moment he’s a child again, alone and far from home and failing the people he cares about most. A wild instinct to run drives him out of bed and without really understanding why he’s throwing on some clothes and grabbing at the objects on his bedside cabinet in the dark. Yanking open the door to his bedroom he’s met with the sight of his partner.

“Yamato? What’s wrong?”

Yamato shakes his head, not sure that he can find the words, and walks past to grab his coat from the table.

Gabumon follows him out of the apartment, and along the empty city streets, mile after mile. When they finally find a spot to rest, perched on a park bench having scaled the fence to get inside, the silence is lighter. Better.

He never has been alone, not really.

 

* * *

 

The room is tidy. A neat pile of paper is stacked on the desk, the sole sign of an entire week’s work finished hastily earlier in the evening. There’s more he should have done, certainly. More he could have done, if he’d really applied himself and pushed harder. It waits for him yet, a promise of stress and anxiety which hangs over him even in slumber.

Too many nights wasted, objectively, filled with fretting and worrying and not actually _working_. The pressure is mounting, after all. He’s running out of time.

His sleep is fitful, tossing back and forth in dreamless, restless slumber. Half-conscious fears nag at him which he will not clearly recall, but which assault him as he lats attempting rest. Where is his worth? How can he stand the disappointment if he doesn’t meet the standards everyone holds?

There are promises in his past, promises for his future, and promises governing his present. Each day is a commitment and tomorrow is no different. An obligation to someone else—always someone else, and never enough time for himself. Never enough time for all that he holds important. It slips through his fingers with his values, always just a deadline away from being shelved. Always too transient for him to really feel necessary. Who would notice, after all, if he slipped away and kept his head down, back bent and brow creased until he’s just another cog in the machine? Another piece to keep the system ticking, insignificant.

Well there’s one, at least, the small white bundle which slumbers beside him, poking and prodding at the sleeping figure, and grumbling: _“Jou, Jouu,”_ under its breath as it nudges him into stillness once more.

And the system can work well enough without this one cog, sometimes. If the moment arrives, he’ll let all those other duties fall in a heartbeat to stand where he wants to be, with who he values more than anyone.

 

* * *

 

 

The world turns underneath her, endlessly blue. The seat is uncomfortable, and on this day—night—whatever time she’s in now, high above an unclaimed ocean—absurdly, she remembers silken sheets in a castle of her very own. A castle standing tall and proud, and the mistakes she made in commandeering it.

As the occupant of the coveted window seat beside her shifts and shuffles, inadvertently elbowing her in the side, her thoughts fly elsewhere. Pushing and jostling for warmth with other shivering bodies, and huddling together in fear as danger stalks their every move. Fighting, ever fighting, again and again until she wants to lie down forever in one place. To give up.

It’s not her nature to dwell, but in this in-between place her thoughts have turned inward, and there’s no halting the spiral as it sinks ever lower. If she’d been stronger. If she’d pulled more weight. If she’d been faster, taller, smarter…could she have saved more? How much of the pain which fell is on her hands, her own mistakes compounded into misery.

How many years will she fly home for scant days here and there, then vanish again as swiftly as she arrived? Flyaway friend, fleeting and brief. Is that the loyalty of the others? It would be so easy for her to be too late. Helpless, far adrift and remote.

The bag at her feet jostles. Glancing over at the window seat hog, she notes the breathing has settled to slumber once more. A flower-bedecked head emerges from the bag, and Mimi welcomes her partner into her arms with a wide smile. Backup, here in this uncomfortable chair, miles above the world.

She’ll be there in time. She always has been before.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s working, still. The sky is long dark and the bottle at his wrist empty, but the screen’s glow is a harsh blue on his face and he’ll sleep soon, yes, but first, _first_ he must finish. Time is short as ever, and these things must be completed.

The world outside his spreadsheets is forgotten, lost in a whirl of data and computations, and there’s something bugging him in the back of his thoughts but remembering what, exactly, it could be? He’ll get to it. It’s on the list, as soon as he’s finished. But the pages keep spiralling, and with one task’s completion another rears its head, and it’s important not to leave this sort of thing hanging.

There’s always something more to do, after all, and not enough hours in the day to get it done. He could work his whole life away and never finish, never feel that he has done all he wants to do and found out all there is to learn. The world is filled with mysteries and inconsistencies and the sensation of ignorance amid them burns. How will they manage if this information is needed in the future and he hasn’t found the answers yet?

No, he has to finish. Has to run more simulations and wrinkle out the bugs in his programmes, and above all keep searching for problems before they catch him unawares again, because racing to catch up with work he should have thought of sooner is the way things go so badly wrong, the way it all unravels and leaves him lost at sea without the solution which everyone has somehow come to rely on him for, and what is he supposed to do then?

“Koushiro you should sleep,” a voice chides him. “You promised you’d rest more.”

He looks up blearily, blinking the dryness from his eyes. Somehow he’s been dozing, and the last few words he typed are gibberish. Frowning, he deletes them, and looks down at the time. Ah. No wonder.

Promises _have_ been made, to friends and partners. He won’t neglect them again with a quest for answers he does not yet need.

 

* * *

 

 

Nightmares are troublesome things. They never fully go away—oh, they leave for stretches, some long, some short, but they always come back. Evil is persistent that way, and sometimes he wonders if he will ever be free of it. If the shadow will ever truly lift for good, and take away the fear of losing all he holds so dear.

The hour is late—too late to justify reading, or fetching out his journal to jot down his worries and attempt to exorcise them. He curls up on himself instead, willing the memories to fade into the nothingness they deserve to be. Caught on a loop, though, they play over and over each time he closes his eyes.

Grief is stark and cruel, and its echoes mingle in his dreams until, exhausted, it grows hard to tell reality from memory from imagination. Loss upon loss as the time has gone by, each stealing more of his innocence. Lying broken and tear-stained in bed he reaches out for something, anything to comfort him in the darkness.

His hand meets warm fur, settling him back down with a sigh. Rolling over, he wraps his arms tightly around the warm shape beside him, pressing his face against his partner as though proximity to his head will block out the memories.

“Takeru?” Patamon says sleepily. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Takeru replies, anchored in reality by the cheerful, drowsy bundle in his arms. “Not any more.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tokyo is beautiful in the dark. The lights of the mainland seem to stretch out forever, on and on until they merge into one great line. Powerful enough that no star can shine brighter.

Taichi is having trouble sleeping again. She can tell quite easily, but but there’s no help she can offer, not with this. Another set of worries and burdens have settled around him, like falling snow. Powerless. Too often she is powerless, a burden to be carried by others and place them all in danger with her frailty.

The thought leads to dark places, old fears and traumas she wishes she could keep buried. They return, though, over and over to torment her like the bouts of ill health which still flare from time to time.

“Hikari,” Tailmon says, observing her expression. “You should come inside. Tomorrow will be busy.”

She glances across at her partner, one of the strongest people she knows. Standing proud despite everything thrown against them; having won over demons of every imaginable kind.

“I was just thinking,” Hikari replies.

“Think in bed,” Tailmon says, matter-of-factly. “It’s far more comfortable than being stood out here.”

Hikari smiles. Tailmon’s presence lends her strength. It always has, come to think of it.

 

* * *

 

The sun dawns over Tokyo some hours later. August returns, once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Something rather different from me, but amid endless chaos I didn't quite have time for more. I'm happier with some of the snippets than others, but hopefully they all fit together well enough.


End file.
